The original report is here [symantec.com]. The relevant paragraph says:

It is interesting to note that Web sites hosting adult/pornographic content are not in the top five, but ranked tenth. The
full list can be seen in figure 16.
Moreover, religious and ideological sites were found to have
triple the average number of threats per infected site than
adult/pornographic sites. We hypothesize that this is because
pornographic website owners already make money from the
internet and, as a result, have a vested interest in keeping their
sites malware-free – it’s not good for repeat business.

Figure 16, interestingly, does not show religious and ideological sites, I assume it is grouped with "Education/Reference". The full top 10 is

It is impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, the believer feels as totally compelling and convincing.

Atheist is impelled by conviction fuelled by external evidence, or lack of evidence. It's incredibly compelling to note that the two largest theist franchises claim their deity possesses three qualities - omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence - and that the state of the world is completely at odds with any entity with all three qualities existing. It's also compelling to note that the more we discover about the universe, the more things we discover that work just fine without any kind of deity.

The believer typically makes a positive virtue of faith's being strong and unshakable, despite it not being based upon evidence.

Atheists don't make a positive virtue of unshakable faith. If anything we use this as an argument ad-hominem about how childish theists are. If you proved that a particular deity existed with actual evidence, most of us would probably a) pee ourselves b) recant our position.

There is a conviction that "mystery", per se, is a good thing; the belief that it is not a virtue to solve mysteries but to enjoy them and revel in their insolubility.

Many of the the most prominent atheists in the media are scientists, a kind of person who by definition delves into mysteries to see how they actually work. I personally find that atheism arises most in those with a questioning mind, the kind of mind that finds that understanding, for example, how the transition of electrons through particular quantum states governs the colour of the light emitted, does not diminish the beauty of phenomena like their aurora borealis, but instead enhances it.

There may be intolerant behaviour towards perceived rival faiths, in extreme cases even the killing of opponents or advocating of their deaths. Believers may be similarly violent in disposition towards apostates or heretics, even if those espouse only a slightly different version of the faith.

We're intolerant of unpleasant behaviour in general (giving the lie to the theistic argument that an atheist can have no moral foundation). We are particularly angered when such behaviour is justified on the basis of faith. Objectively, being a religious asshat is not worse than being a standard asshat, but we observe that religion has a tendency to nurture and encourage asshattery of certain types, and even for asshats it did not create, it provides a readily accessible stock of cherry-picked excuses and justifications for asshattery, whereas a faithless man might have fallen back on his conscience, or fear of the law.

The particular convictions that the believer holds, while having nothing to do with evidence, are likely to resemble those of the believer's parents.

I don't think this can be disputed - atheist parents are more likely to have atheist kids. This is nothing to do with religion per-se, this is an observation about culture in general.

If the believer is one of the rare exceptions who follows a different religion from his parents, the explanation may be cultural transmission from a charismatic individual.

Another observation about culture and how it's transmitted, but it fits in with the "viral ideas" theory. Ideas ARE viral, and we invent new transmission vectors like Twitter, and hashtags.

The internal sensations of the 'faith-sufferer' may be reminiscent of those more ordinarily associated with sexual love.

I don't think atheists have a woody for the absence of a deity. I don't think you can be sexually excited about the absence of something. I think atheists, just like everyone else, can have displacement of their sexual urges in a fetishi

Rejcting a claim that has zero evidence and defies logic is not only scientific, it's common-sense. Dawkin's has on many occasions stated in plain english that neither he nor anyone else can be absolutely sure that unicorns don't fart rainbows, but that there is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that unverifyable reports of such beasts are anything more than an elaborate fiction. If you had spent more than 5 minutes to read his books, listen to his lectures, or watch his debates, you would have known that.

If you are interested in forming a more accurate picture of Dawkins rather than parroting the Fox and Friends charactature that is so popular in the US, the first of his books with a religious theme that I would recommend is "Unweaving the Rainbow".

It is not even that. Atheism and Agnosticism exist on orthogonal axes. Theism and Atheism make ontological statements about the existence resp. nonexistence of deities. Agnosticism, on the other hand, makes an epistemological statement about the possibility to know about said existence. It is perfectly possible to be an agnostic theist as well as an agnostic atheist.

As for the scientific validity - in absence of evidence, the default assumption is non-existence. It is simple as that. Do we need that debate every single fucking time the weekly religion vs. atheism thread pops up?

"religious and ideological sites were found to have triple the average number of threats per infected site thanadult/pornographic sites."

Three points:

1. The report lumps religious and ideological sites together. Maybe the infected sites were ideological (non-religious) sites. You cannot conclude anything about religious sites at all from that statistic.

2. The report implies nothing about the safety of religious/ideological sites. It just says that if a religious/ideological site is infected, then it has more threats on average than an infected adult site. If the percentage of religious/ideological sites that are infected is lower than the percentage of adult sites that are infected, then religious/ideological sites could be much safer on average. Indeed, figure 16 on page 36 of the report doesn't list religous/ideological sites as dangerous. The point is that the safety of religious/ideological sites as a whole must account for uninfected sites. The "number of threats per infected site" is just about irrelevant.

3. If there is any limit to the gullibility or statistical illiteracy of internet users, I have yet to perceive it.

Ministries do not have to report profits (in the U.S).They are a larger industry than the p0rn industry - sadly this is very true.

I'm sure that there are sincere ministry people out there - because theydon't see the wealth of their "leaders" at the top. An exception is Family Radio,which seems to have been bankrupt by Camping (I noticed some of their radiostations have disappeared).

I knew someone who flew. He was telling me about all of the private jets theseministries own - they avoid large airports and use the smaller out-of-the-waylocations. They dress like men in black. I kid not. The Bakers' "ministry" isalive and well - though they're not at the top any more, the "ministry" they startedis worth in the hundreds of millions. Same with all of the other "ministries". Very sad.